Vermont considers lowering the drinking age

The state of Vermont is currently considering two potential bills to lower the legal drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen.

Although there has been a running dialogue on alcohol restriction for years, Vermont is the first state to actively pursue a change, and runs some serious risks in doing so.

According to foxnews.com, the state could potentially lose ten percent of their annual federal transportation funding if they don't maintain the minimum drinking age of 21 under the 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act unless Congress agrees to grant state waivers to the legislation, as Vermont representatives will request.

John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont and founder of the nonprofit Choose Responsibility, is a strong advocate for the change. He asserts on the site that the higher drinking age "encourages unsafe drinking."

But Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) argues the complete opposite, claiming that such a change could put thousands of lives in danger.

McCardell is one of the many college presidents from schools like Syracuse and Ohio State, who are chief proponents of lowering the drinking age.

Advocates like McCardell point out that since the current restrictions on alcohol are difficult to enforce and don't effectively reduce drinking among youth, allowing young people to drink legally in public places and not hidden in basements and apartments could foster more responsible drinking.

Other supporters argue that Europe's drinking age is significantly lower than America's.

Although the drinking age varies from country to country, anyone over the age of 18 is allowed to purchase alcohol.

Lewis Drummond, a London native, described the difference in mentality between American youth and European youth, who are often exposed to drinking at a younger age. "When the Americans came and they could drink legally for the first time at age eighteen, they just went nuts. They would get completely trashed for days at a time… it's just a different culture," he said.

According to AlcoholAlert.com, the state of California had 3,434 alcohol-related deaths in 2008 – the second highest after Texas. New York ranked number nine on the list of alcohol-related fatalities with 1,231 deaths in 2008.

MADD cites the Center for Disease Control studies showing that increasing the minimum drinking age to 21 saved lives while lowering the minimum drinking age to 18 or 19 caused an average increase in crashes of eight to 10 percent.

At the center of the heated drinking age debate are colleges and their students.

Sciencedaily.com estimated that more than 500,000 full-time students at four-year colleges suffer injuries each year related in some way to drinking, and about 1,700 die in such accidents.

But, many universities like Cornell have already taken a step promoting legal regulation of drinking on campus by enacting "medical amnesty policies," so that students seeking medical attention for drugs and alcohol will not be penalized.

As a commuter school, the question of drinking age and campus safety isn't as widely relevant to Baruch as it is to some other schools. According to AddictionInfo.org commuter schools are among the four categories of schools that drink the least.

However, as the college gears up to offer student housing in the future, worries about campus drinking might soon be on the table.

"I don't even think New York is going to lower the age, not anytime soon," said Neena Gupta, a senior Adhoc media communications major. "Lowering the age could have two effects: it can either go extreme with more accidents or it could stay the same, but our society isn't used to [drinking at a young age] compared to countries like Canada and England, where they were brought up that way."